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Later, you will pinpoint this as the moment it starts:
"So, you going to tell me what the fuck is going on?" you ask.
Kanaya locks up, her arms around you. "I'm sorry?" she says. You did kind of con her into a pile by implying that you were the one having a problem, which was a bit of a dick move but you know how she gets about admitting things are getting to her. How long did it take for her and Lalonde to work out that stupid soporifics issue? Way too long, in your expert opinion.
"We won the biggest, stupidest con game in paradox space, we got a grand prize shiny new universe that makes only token attempts to kill us, the salvaged Matriorb hatched—oh fuck, that's what's wrong, isn't it? Something's wrong with the new Mother Grub. She injured herself. She's sick. She's—"
"Shoosh," Kanaya says fondly, her fingertips against your mouth. Your pump biscuit swells. "No, she's fine. Thriving, even. But that presents its own challenge."
"Mmn," you prompt her helpfully, since she still has her hand on your mouth.
"The traditional role of the jadebloods in the brooding caverns was... more involved than most trolls were ever told."
You peel her hand away and kiss her palm before you lace your fingers with hers. "Okay, that was a really good ominous pause," you say. "And I bet if we hadn't already faced down the technicolor god of shitting on everything everyone loves, I would be freaking out right now." Kanaya smiles stiffly. "But come on. We'll work this out. What's so 'involved' about it?"
She tells you.
You freak out.
"I'm willing to do it," she says, quiet and unsteady. "I'm just afraid that I won't be enough. That if I'm the only one, I won't be able to handle it all, and there will be consequences."
"Consequences."
"Either to the grubs' viability or... or to me."
"Fuck that," you say, loud, as if that could cover how you're shaking just thinking about it. "We're not putting you at risk." You are not letting your people die anymore, that's the fucking rule. "What about Porrim?"
Kanaya shakes her head. "She won't do it. The idea upsets her too much; it was something she never wanted. She offered to provide any care I needed during the process, but she won't go through it herself."
You take a breath to snap, but catch hold of yourself in time. Kanaya really likes her dancestor, and you admit she did get one of the most respectable ones, as low a horizontal measuring device as that is. "The idea that somebody could refuse to do what they were hatched for is still totally bizarre," you say instead.
"I'm not sure anyone's hatchright matters, at this point," she points out.
"Fair." You stew in quiet frustration for another minute, avoiding the obvious next step until you can't help yourself. "Does it have to be jadebloods?"
It doesn't have to be jadebloods. Once Porrim gets over her shock that Kanaya told you—apparently on both of your worlds this was a weirdly guarded secret—the three of you sit down and discuss how it works. They explain the steps of the process, from the deposit of the fertile material with the Mother Grub (which the drones did back on Alternia, but will have to be done manually now) through the laying of hatch-ready eggs by the incubators. A few times Porrim has to get up and pace, and once she actually leaves the block for a few minutes. The scent coming off her would make you ready your sickles, if she were Alternian.
"I don't get why she's so freaked out," you mutter. "I mean, it's weird and kind of gross, but we're just talking about it. We already agreed she doesn't have to do it."
"Panic isn't a reasonable thing," Kanaya says.
"You're not panicking," you point out. "God, let people have choices all the time, then when the excrement hits the ventilating device they can't handle the idea this has to get done."
Kanaya raises an eyebrow. "Are you suggesting that you miss Alternia?"
"Well, parts of it were—"
"You don't get parts," she says. "It was the combination of everything about that world that produced us the way we are."
"You sound suspiciously like Lalonde," you say. Kanaya just glows at you smugly. "No," you admit after a while. "Taken as a whole, I don't fucking miss it."
"In that case," Kanaya says, "we shall simply have to live with the fact that not everyone on this planet will be a battle hardened warrior the way you are."
You decide to believe that wasn't human sarcasm, despite probability. You're a badass. You can do this.
The three of you agree, eventually, to tell the others how this has to happen. With a population numbering in the double digits, absences would be noticed. Might as well explain ahead of time and prevent any alarms from being raised.
So everyone gets together in the communal space the humans keep calling a "village square," even though it isn't remotely regular in shape, and Kanaya does most of the talking. "—And since there are so few of us, our best chance of success is for everyone to pool their, ah, resources. Everyone who currently has a concupiscent partner, please plan to bring a contribution to the caverns the night after next, and we'll attempt to inseminate her that night."
Sollux and Mituna look at each other and high five. Feferi and Latula grin like they'd be doing likewise if their matesprits weren't in between them.
"And for the love of fuck," you add, "if you don't have a concupiscent partner, get one, because if the slurry is fifty percent Captors we will all wish we'd double-died within a sweep."
Okay, that causes a little disorder, as all the trolls start talking at once, trying to ask questions of the Maryams and each other. You resolutely don't look anybody in the eye, so you can't make things any more awkward than they already are; you're certainly not going to have any pails to contribute to step one. Meanwhile, Tavros seems to be trying to sidle away from the entire gathering without anyone noticing. Somebody, you don't see who, punches Cronus in the mouth.
Kanaya's chainsaw revs, and the commotion dies like a hopbeast with a bad vascular system. "Thank you," she says into the relative calm. "Once everyone who is able has contributed, Porrim and I will perform the next step."
You half-hear Dave mutter something about a turkey baster that prompts John to make awful faces and Roxy to punch him in the arm. You have no idea how they intend to manage their species survival problem, and you distract yourself for a minute pondering that while Kanaya explains to the class exactly where, in fact, the Mother Grub lays her eggs.
"If I may be excused for the impertinence of the question," Equius says, and if there was one sparkling ray of moonshine this meeting didn't need it was the endless delight of dealing with Zahhak hangups, "why Vantas? You have inherited the role, but he is hardly—"
"You may not be excused for the impertinence of the fucking question!" you interrupt. "We needed more bodies. I give enough of a shit to want to make life easier for my moirail. My filthy mutant carcass volunteered. Unless anyone wants to take my spot?"
You glare at them. Everyone looks uncomfortable. "Dude," John says. "The crazy mood swings are supposed to come after you're knocked up." Roxy swats him too, and you mentally promote her to your favorite human.
"I am not taking volunteers in any case," Kanaya says. "I already know who I want to have at my side for this."
Wow. You look at her straight on and she's blushing as hard as you are, but she doesn't take it back and she does take your hand. You might still be a complete failure on the concupiscent side of the grid, but you got damn lucky with your diamond.
If you never have see the Mother Grub absorbing your friends' combined genetic material again, you will consider yourself a very lucky troll.
The slurry has to incubate for two nights before the Mother Grub can produce the eggs, and on the night between input and output, Porrim shows up with a little pot of something slick and musky smelling and offers it to Kanaya. "It isn't the original formula, I'm afraid," she says. "I had to improvise with this world's flora. But it'll do the job."
Kanaya looks at the pot and then at Porrim again. "I'm sorry," she says slowly, "but what am I looking at here?"
"Warming salve," Porrim says, equally slowly, looking dismayed. "To stimulate your nook, so it produces lubricant at the beginning of the process? So you wouldn't...." Her expression crumples as she speaks, the familiar look you're coming to associate with every discussion of the differences between Beforus and Alternia. "You didn't have that."
"Not that I know of," Kanaya says.
Porrim hugs her, which makes you bristle until she pulls back and then hugs you next. "What," you say, your dignity entirely mauled in a way that feels nicer than you want it to. "What the fuck is that for?"
"I'm sorry," Porrim says, and you don't think she's talking about the hugs. "If I could stand it, I..."
"We know," Kanaya says. "You'll just have to make it up to us by being very attentive and helpful while we're carrying."
"Right," you say. "Cater to our every neurotic and hormone-addled whim."
Porrim's lips twitch. "It's a deal."
You and Kanaya stare at the pot after Porrim leaves. "I don't know how those assholes ever survived anything worse than stubbing their toes," you say. "Actually I bet they didn't, I bet there was an annual toe-stubbing casualty rate in the thousands." Kanaya gives you a little reserved smile. "What."
"You're cute when you're outraged," she says.
You sputter.
You do panic after all. Just not until the last minute. You're in the caverns, in the little antechamber part where you can get ready, and you just freeze up, your sweater pulled off overhead and clutched tight against your thorax. You can't put it down.
"I can't do this," you choke out. "We—this isn't going to work."
Kanaya had been fidgeting with the hem of her shirt, not watching you undress, but she looks up now. God, she's fucking terrified. "Will you stay with me while I do?" she asks quietly.
You feel like you've been kicked in the face. "Don't let me fucking treat you like that!" you snap. "Don't let me just—just fail you! Make me—"
"Make yourself," Kanaya interrupts, and it's rare enough for her to raise her voice at you that you shut up. "We need this. As a species, we need someone to do this. I need someone to do it with me. Do not ask me to force you. Please."
You drop your sweater and throw your arms around her before either of you can start crying. "I'm sorry," you mumble into her shoulder. "I'm sorry, I want to make this easier on you, not worse. I suck."
"Shut up," Kanaya says into your hair, and kisses your horn. "I'm nervous too."
The outright panic fades into a background hum of queasy nerves, so that's progress. You hold onto Kanaya and purr apologetically.
"Do you want me to go first?" she asks at last.
You shake your head. "You're the one who knows what's going on. If something goes wrong, you'll have a better chance of catching it than I would."
"Okay," she says. She stands there and holds you for another minute before she disengages. "Ready to keep going?"
"Close enough," you say. You're only a little bit hoarse.
You kick off your shoes and push down your jeans and boxers together. Kanaya hands you the stuff Porrim made, and then turns her back so you can apply it—being naked in front of your moirail is one thing, but fondling yourself is something else.
And neither compares with being used for breeding purposes by a symbiote species. Fuck.
"Okay, let's do it," you say. You leave your hands at your sides so it'll be less obvious that they're shaking.
The main cavern where the Mother Grub lives is further in than the small antechamber for her caretakers. It's dark, but comfortably so, even for your relatively poor eyesight. It has a raised platform carved out on one side to give you a place to lie down and, well. Make yourself available.
When you've been in there before, the Mother Grub herself pretty much just sat there. This time, though, she's grooming her swollen abdomen when you and Kanaya come in, and she looks up, tracking your progress across the cavern. Your skin prickles.
You reach the platform about the same time the Mother Grub manages to get her legs under her. She's slow-moving, the eggs weighing her down, her wings beating little useless gestures behind her, like she's impatient to get going.
You climb up onto the platform, glancing back at Kanaya. "I'm right here," she says.
"Yeah." You lie back, spreading your legs as much as you can bring yourself to. Being on your front seems like it would feel less vulnerable, less exposed, but that's apparently not safe—the natural curvature and stiffness of the Mother Grub's equipment would make the risk of injury really high. You grope for Kanaya's hand. She laces her fingers with yours.
Porrim's stimulant cream makes your nook feel swollen and warm, weird and wrong as that is when your bulge is still entirely sheathed. You're breathing hard, your bloodpusher thudding as if you've just come through a battle, and all you're doing is lying here. The Mother Grub chitters, and you close your eyes.
"It's all right," Kanaya says. She squeezes your hand. "Try to relax."
You attempt a laugh and choke on it. "Easy for you to say."
Kanaya kisses your temple. "Just try. This is the worst part, remember. Once she starts, it'll feel better."
You open your mouth to say something and then the Mother Grub's antennae flutter against your leg and your voice dies. She traces an exploratory path up the inside of your thigh while you shiver, and when she touches your exposed nook it takes all your willpower not to slam your legs shut.
The touch withdraws, and the Mother Grub chirrs, a weird half-familiar sound, and you realize after a second that she's trying to mimic a troll mating call. "Oh my god."
"You're doing fine," Kanaya murmurs. She works her other hand into your hair, rubbing the base of one hornbed, and you groan. A little ripple of heat washes over your skin. You try to relax.
A shadow falls over you and instinct makes you open your eyes. The Mother Grub looms over you, adult-sized but not troll-shaped, staring down at you with glittering compound eyes. She makes the chirring sound again, what ought to be a romantic noise bastardized through god only knows what kind of vocal structures. "I really wish I didn't need to be facing her," you say.
"I know," Kanaya says. "You're being very brave. I'm proud of you."
You close your eyes again and turn your head so you can hide your face in the comforting softness of her rumble spheres. You're going to be brave. You're going to not embarrass or worry her. Something blunt nudges at the opening of your nook and you do. not. whimper.
It slides against you awkwardly a few times, and by the time it gets the angle right you can't help how tense you are. You don't mean to let the whine escape, but it feels strange and cool and uncomfortable, pressing you open. You've only ever had your fingers in there before, and only when you actually felt like it, and that didn't prepare you for this at all. Kanaya purrs gently and you cling to that soothing sound.
The Mother Grub pushes her ovipositor further into your nook, her heavy abdomen pressing against your thighs. She's deeper inside you now than your fingers will reach, far enough that—for a second something hurts, and you panic, fuck, what if she ruptured you somewhere, what if you actually can't do this because you're a defective mutant, what if—the pain eases off, turns into a dull throb and then recedes, and instead you just feel odd and warm.
"Oh," you breathe. "I think, oh."
"Mmm. It looks like she's settled," Kanaya says. The calmness in her tone is nice. You cling to it. "She should be starting soon."
You nod. You're going to keep breathing. You're getting good at it. The ovipositor pulses, then thickens until it's almost painful, right at the entrance to your nook. You hiss at the pressure but it passes—passes into you, into the soft interior of your nook. The Mother Grub leans into you, chirring, and you feel another moment of almost-too-much pressure deeper inside before she trills and rocks back.
"Oh my god. Oh my god, Kanaya, it's working, it's. I can fucking feel it in there." You place a hand low over your abdomen, where you would swear you can feel the new weight nestled inside you. You wince as your nook stretches again, but it's not as bad when you know it'll pass, and then she's chirring as she deposits the second egg.
You're carrying eggs, holy shit. The gravity of the situation starts to really hit you at last, as you breathe through another insertion. Eggs. Future actual trolls who will grow up on this planet and have lives entirely unlike anything the rest of you experienced as wigglers. The Mother Grub leans into you again and you trill up at her.
"How does it feel?" Kanaya asks, and you try to scrape some words together to answer her because it's her turn next and god, you don't want her to be afraid.
"It's, I think the hormone thing is working? I think she's doing it. I think I feel better about this than I should." That sounds ridiculous and makes you even more certain it's true. "That's good, though, it's good, I feel fine. I can—ahhn, that's another one, I can feel them m-moving through her and, and into me." The eggs are putting pressure on your bulge from inside, and your sheath is starting to dilate a little in response. You rub it, coaxing it to loosen further, and the next egg after that makes you unsheathe.
Kanaya makes a little surprised noise. "That's certainly encouraging."
You laugh breathlessly. "It's just—a reflex," you say, which is also the case when your bulge curls around your fingers, but you're too much of a wreck to be really embarrassed by that now.
"It's all right. Let it happen," Kanaya says. "It might help."
"Might?" you echo. For some reason that feels more entertaining than alarming right now.
Kanaya's blushing. "Everything I know about this is theoretical so far," she reminds you.
"Don't worry," you say. "You're doing great."
You miss what she says in return, because you're groaning at the stretch of taking another egg. You squeeze your bulge, slowly, the way you would when you were taking care of yourself and not in a hurry. You feel so laid open, so completely exposed, with the ovipositor deep inside you and pushing the eggs even deeper. All your nerve endings are shivery and alert. You think by now your nook would be dripping naturally, even without the cream, from the repeated swelling and contraction of the ovipositor.
Your back arches and you trill, pleasure rippling through you. The hand holding your bulge is sticky. The egg mass inside you shifts with your movement—you don't quite hit a hard peak, an actual climax, but you tremble along the edge enough to spill some fluid, and the next time the Mother Grub rocks against you your nook makes an obscene squelching noise.
"Oh," you breathe. That partial release eased some of the pressure inside you, helped with the growing feeling of incredible fullness. You work your bulge a little harder. "I think," you manage between tremors, "it w-would have been, a, a good idea to fill a pail in the last night or so."
"Oh dear," Kanaya says, which sounds so silly right now that you giggle. "How are you doing?"
"Still good," you say, feeling your genetic material sacs release another fraction of their load. You don't know if you'll be able to have a climax when you're pinned open like this, but by god you're going to get as much material out as you can. "Is she halfway yet?"
"I think she's getting close," Kanaya says. "Are you ready for me to take over?"
You shake your head. "I'm good. Don't stop her." The eggs are coming more slowly than they did at first, like it's less urgent for her to get them out now that she's not full of so many. Which is good, because each one stuffs you tighter than the last—despite your best attempts to wring the slurry out of your body, you can't keep up with her pumping you steadily fuller.
You jerk yourself completely dry, a spoonful at a time, as your belly swells with eggs. Your skin stretches, draws taut around the growing weight—it feels like it's pressing the rest of you outward, taking up every inch of space inside you. Breathing takes work. You squirm, trying to find room to fit more of them, settle them more snugly inside you. It's starting to hurt, and you grit your teeth against that, pushing yourself down.
"Karkat," Kanaya says sharply. "Are you all right?"
"I'm—" you mean to say fine but it sticks, turns into a hiss as the next push sharpens the pain.
"You're done," she says, rising to take control of the Mother Grub. You are done, you know it, but some tiny part of you still wants to keep going even though you're pretty sure you can't. You don't see exactly what Kanaya does, but the ovipositor disengages, withdrawing with an awkward series of jerks. The Mother Grub makes a warbling sound that you're almost sure is distress, and you trill back at her without thinking.
"A little help, please," Kanaya says.
"Right, sorry." You pour yourself off the edge of the platform, wobbling on your feet. Your nook aches and the weight of the eggs, your eggs, settles heavy between your hips. You take a careful step, then another. "Here, I got her."
You slide past Kanaya to get both hands on the Mother Grub's thorax, holding her back. She trills at you as Kanaya lets go. You shoosh her. You're feeling absurdly fond of the universe.
Cloth rustles behind you. "Okay," Kanaya says. She sounds shaky; you let go of the Mother Grub and turn back to your moirail to take her hand. She's taken your spot, waiting, ready.
You bring her hand to your lips, kiss her knuckles. "Don't worry," you tell her. "You're going to be fine."
Later, when the Mother Grub is empty of eggs and both of you are heavy and full, you stumble back out to the antechamber and the ridiculously soft pile waiting for you there. It takes some work to figure out how to get comfortable, with both of your abdomens swollen. You wind up basically just collapsed beside each other instead of curled up in each other's arms. Your bulge is finally flaccid enough to tuck back into the cramped space available; Kanaya isn't there yet, so you graciously drape a blanket over her lap. You purr. So does she.
"We did good," you say. You aren't even asking; you can feel it. You're achy and exhausted, and not sure now that you're down here how you intend to get back up again, but it's okay.
Kanaya nods. She has one hand on her belly and rests the other one on yours now, cool and soft. "We did." She sounds a little choked up, but she's smiling. "In a very real way, we have given this world a future."
"Heh. Is it a future where we can make Porrim bring us pancakes in the evening?"
Fuck, Kanaya's little entertained smile is great. She pets your gravid belly. "Of course," she says. "That's the only future worth having."
"I might not go that far. Depending on how hungry we get before she shows up, I guess." You lay your hand over hers. "But it definitely looks like a good one from here."